The stories we share.

It’s funny how artists sometimes think themselves as storytellers.

In the middle of the year, I was fortunate enough to have an in-conversation with Osamah Sami with my fellow cohort. He was a stand-up comedian, writer, and talented actor and funny enough; a storyteller. That’s what he told us. What he put on his passport as his occupation is a storyteller. He is a paid storyteller.

At the time I found this quite ridiculous mocking the Australian Government for allowing this to happen on an official piece of document but throughout this year, I’ve grown fond of the title. As an actor, you have been given the privilege of being the voice of those how can’t speak and it’s fascinating how I must delve into their own stories to be able to do them justice. That is my job… Telling stories… but we all do that in our own way.

I am a storyteller and practically, so is everyone in the world. Honestly, we all have a story that we can share. Like the story of our greatest triumph to get the girl we’ve been waiting for, our battles we faced in times of adversity or even the story of where we’re from. We all have a story that makes us who we are. The reason we share these stories is to show who we are but… sometimes we become selective or hesitant about sharing who we are.

In my life, I found it very hard to naturally talk about myself. I know from my heritage that it’s frowned upon to “boast” about yourself and people like a quiet personality. Someone who doesn’t fill the room. As a result, we develop low self-esteem.

We are scared of being judged. We are scared of being ignored.
We are scared to share our stories. This has become our cultural story.

This cultural story has been dictating who we are. The one story that is affecting us all is the one where we don’t share our story. It doesn’t happen to everyone but I bet once in our lives. There has been a trend where we choose not to share their story.

I think it’s time to just acknowledge that it’s there and change it but only one step at a time. I’m not saying that accepting who we are is easy. It takes time. Small wins that collate into something bigger and then you will feel okay. You will feel accepted for who you are because you are enough.